The Semrush

Content
Writing
Workbook
A practical guide to improving
the efficiency of content production
 The Semrush content writing workbook

About
This Workbook
If writing is an art and marketing is a science, then producing high-
performance marketing content requires a healthy dose of both.

In content marketing, there’s no such thing as a blank page. There’s always

a set of business objectives, an audience, a brief, and a strategy just below the
surface. Professional content marketers know how to use everything at their
disposal to write assets that resonate with their target audiences.

In this workbook, we’ll take you through what it takes to write standout content
that achieves real business goals. You’ll work through practical tasks and learn
how to develop a content plan, write engagingly, and deliver a ton
of value to your audience.

Here’s what we are going to cover: ↓

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Table
of Contents
04 Getting started with a content 34 A guide to writing different
writing plan types of copy
39 Workbook Task Four: Explore the SEO
07 Who is your target audience?
Content Template Recommendations
for Your Next Content Piece
10 What is your message and how
will it engage your audience
40 How to edit & publish your
on an emotional level?
testimonials
13 Primer: the continuing importance
of text 43 Optimizing your content
14 Workbook Task One: Preparing your for search engines
content plan objectives 48 Primer: becoming a thought leader
16 Primer: How does your content and
50 Wrapping up
brand story impact your audience?
18 Workbook Task Two: Create a Content 51 Semrush Content Marketing
Marketing Mission Statement Platform

19 How to write engaging content

and copy

23 7 Elements of an Engaging
Blog Post
32 Workbook Task Three: Analyze Your
Upcoming Content
33 Primer: becoming a thought leader

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Getting started
with a content
writing plan

1 Starting with objectives

There are several layers of objectives you’ll

need to keep in mind when writing your content
marketing plan.

Asset objectives

Content marketing objectives

Overarching business objectives

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Overarching business objectives

While these won’t help you write content directly, business objectives
are foundational—they inform the strategic direction of the company.
In most cases, these objectives will have been defined by the
executive team.

Content marketing objectives

These objectives should identify exactly what your content campaigns
need to achieve within a certain timeframe. They should also stay
aligned with your overarching business objectives in order to stay
relevant and measurable

Asset objectives
Each individual asset should have an objective and help move the
content plan forward. Nothing should be created unless there is some
strategic thinking behind it.

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2 Writing effective objectives

There’s an art to writing effective objectives.

Vague aims are impossible to measure, those that
overreach demotivate teams, but objectives that
are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant,
and time-bound (SMART) get results.

Answer the following questions to ensure your

content marketing objectives are SMART:

S What does this content campaign need to achieve?

M How will we know it is successful?

A Can we achieve this with current resources?

R How does it align with the overarching business strategy?

T By when must we achieve the results?

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Who is your
target audience?
You need a firm understanding of your target audience. Without this you
are in danger of creating content that is too generalized—and, as prolific
American author Mike Nappa says:

“
“If you write for everyone, no one will buy. If you write for one,
everyone who feels like that one will buy.”

Developing an understanding of your audience

Buyer personas allow you to segment your market into recognizable groups
for targeting. They profile your target customers, existing clients and potential
customers or readers that you may not want to target yet. And once you have
a clear picture of each type of client, it becomes easier to know their aims,
challenges and objections. This in turn will help you position your messaging
and create content that resonates with them. ↓

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These personas encompass a range of information that might be relevant
for your team to know. For example:
Demographics and background
• Age range
• Gender identity
• Employment
Objectives and challenges
• What do they need to achieve?
• How would your product
or service help them?
Customer journey
• What would they like most about
your product or service?
• What objections would they have?
Content marketing preferences
• Their favorite content formats
(e.g., podcasts and blog posts)
• The key topics and themes they
are into
The Semrush content writing workbook
• Salary
• Location
• Marital status
• What’s stopping them?
• What other products or services
have they tried?
• How would you pitch your
product or service to them
in 30 seconds or less?
• Their preferred communication
channels (e.g., social media or email)
• The brand and influencers they
tend to follow
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How do you create buyer personas?

Get input from your team to decide exactly what information you need for your
buyer personas. A well-researched set will help your content team understand
who they are writing for and why.

Just be aware that these personas should be

evidence-based, and not invented because
assumptions about clients can lead your
content writing team astray. You can use
a range of data sources to help you inform
your buyer personas, including:

• Google Analytics • Other reliable team knowledge

(e.g. from account managers)
• User surveys or interviews
• Social media analytics
• In-house sales or customer
service data

Read more about Buyer Personas↗

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What is your message

and how will it engage
your audience on
an emotional level?
When creating a message for your buyer personas, you have to remember
that each person is at a different stage of the customer journey. This journey
can be mapped onto a content marketing funnel. As you can see from the
diagram below, we generally consider clients to be in one of three stages;
the Awareness stage, the Consideration stage, or the Conversion stage.

The customer is aware they need to

Awareness solve a problem, but unaware of the
solutions available to them.

The customer is aware of a number

Consideration of solutions and is researching the
best fit for them.

The customer is almost ready

Conversion to purchase a solution, but needs
guidance and onboarding help.

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Messaging for each stage of the funnel

You can encounter leads at any stage of the customer journey. That means
you should have a range of content to meet your buyer personas’ needs at
each point in the funnel:

Awareness
At this point in the customer journey, your website visitor needs guidance,
not a salesperson. The content you create should therefore answer
their questions and point them in the right direction. Avoid hard-sell
copywriting and give the content consumer time to explore their options.

If a visitor clicks through to a sales page or product landing page, they

might be more serious about purchasing.

Consideration
At this point in the customer journey, your website visitor wants more
product information. Refer back to your buyer personas—what were
their biggest frustrations? What do they need to achieve? Ensure the
content you produce helps them find the answers to their most frequently
asked questions. Your potential buyers should be able to understand the
benefits of the product or service.

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Conversion
When someone is ready to buy from you, it’s smart to make sure the
purchasing process is as simple as possible. Conversion content gives
the clients the nudge they need to make a final decision and makes
buying from you easy.

Source: the Semrush Study↗

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Primer The continuing importance of text

Text will always have certain advantages over video, even beyond
the obvious benefit of being more easily interpreted by machines and
search algorithms.

Text is:
• quicker to consume than video (you can read faster than you can watch);

• easier to scan than video (skip down if you already knew this part);

• easier to share than video (try to pull a quote out of a video and send
it to a friend);

• lends itself well to short-form information (no one records quick

answer videos);

• is better in quiet or social environments (I read the paper while

eating breakfast with my wife).

Is anyone seriously predicting the end of text? Try to imagine it. What do
you do with your email inbox? How would social media comments work?
How would you search for things?

Video is an amazing format. It conveys emotion and trust. It explains

complex concepts. It’s passive to consume so viewers often sit back and
binge for hours. But video is no threat to text.

— Andy Crestodina,
Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder,
Orbit Media Studios, Inc.

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Workbook Task One

Preparing your content plan objectives
Answer the following questions, considering the first three
months of your content marketing output.

S What does our content campaign need to achieve?

e.g., We need to increase the number of our Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).

M How will we know it is successful? (What Key performance indicators will you use?)
e.g., We need to increase those leads by at least 15%.

A Can we achieve this with current resources? (If not, what resources will
we need to find?)
e.g., We will need to use a content marketing and SEO platform to help.

R How does it align with the overarching business strategy?

e.g., New leads will increase our bottom line.

T By when must we achieve the results?

e.g., By the end of the first quarter.

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Summarize your answers above in a single paragraph, which

will form the basis of your content marketing plan objectives.
E.g. By the end of the first quarter, we will have chosen a SEO content
marketing tool to help us generate 15% more new, qualified leads and increase
our bottom line.

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Primer How does your content and brand story

impact your audience?
So far we’ve been focusing on your objectives and your
customers. Your brand image forms a much bigger part of
the equation: It’s the public’s perception of your company.
It exists in the minds of your consumers and followers—
and comprises their thoughts (both positive and negative)
about your company.
Every piece of content, input and interaction from and with your brand
contributes to this image. While you cannot control how your content and
branding is perceived by the marketplace, you can strive to ensure all the
content, copy and ads you produce form a consistent and coherent image
of your brand.

Ultimately, it’s about having a shared vision and understanding of your

brand story, style, voice and tone. By telling authentic stories that reflect
positively on your company, your content will contribute to a brand image
that people know and love.

Consider the following brand questions with your team.

What does our company deliver that no other does?

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When do we perform better than our competitors?

When have we failed to do our best?

What would our customers miss most about us, if we went away tomorrow?

What is our Brand Purpose—the ultimate value we deliver to our customers?

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Workbook Task Two

Create a Content Marketing Mission Statement
In the following task, work with your team to complete a content marketing
mission statement. It will ensure everyone is working towards the same goal and
will help make your content more consistent.

Fill out the following content marketing mission statement

from Andy Crestodina and Orbit Media. This will help you
consider how your content will help your audience
understand why you are different.

Our content is where

[audience x] gets

[information y] that offers

[benefit z]

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How to write
engaging content
and copy
Learning how to write engaging copy takes time, but there are
some tips and techniques that can help speed up the process.
Let’s go into some key writing tactics and frameworks that all
marketers need to know.

The AIDA framework

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. This natural progression
is important to keep in mind, especially when trying to write conversion or
product-led content.

The framework is most often applied to a single product-focused landing

or sales page at the bottom of the funnel, but it can also be useful when
thinking about other types of content too. For example, learning how to get
your audience’s attention and generating interest is important at all stages
of content creation.

Here’s how the framework works and what you should consider: ↓

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Attention—writing great headlines

The first step in the framework encourages you to think about your
headlines and openings. How are you going to get your buyer persona
to click on your content? What will make them look twice?

Things to think about:

• Use contrast, humor, controversy, conflict or emotion in your headlines.

Including one or more of these factors will make your copy irresistible.

• Ensure your H1 is unique—this will avoid your website visitors getting

confused.

• Make sure your H1 describes the content. Google may have a harder
time understanding what your content is about if your H1 doesn’t
describe it well enough.

• Use question words 'how', 'why', 'what', and 'where'—these help

people understand what they will find in your content.

• Consider using numbers in your headlines: list headlines tend to get

80% more traffic than other types of articles. These also get 2x more
social shares than other headline types, according to our research.

Other attention-grabbing factors

• Select eye-catching featured images. Your featured images should

pop. If they are not visually arresting, they won’t stand out on social
media and your content could easily fade into the background.

• Speak to your audience directly. Use all of the data you have on your
buyer personas to your advantage. The more personal a piece of
content feels, the more likely it is to be successful.

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Interest—delivering on expectations
Once someone has clicked on your article, video, or landing page, you
have to keep them interested. Here’s how:

• Deliver on expectations. Your content must meet your audience’s

expectations—clickbait headlines aim to deceive in order to generate
traffic. At the same time, they get high bounce rates because people
leave when the content isn’t what it appeared to be.

• Provide value. No matter what type of content you’re writing, you need
to be sure your audience can find the solution they are searching
for and take away something practical. Remember your audience’s
challenges, questions and goals—and be sure that your content
guides and informs them.

Desire—showing benefits over features

Once you have someone’s attention and interest, it’s time to consider how
your content affects their desire. How will you get your audience over the
line and ready to take an action?

• If you are writing conversion-level content, remember to speak to your

product or services benefits. Think about HOW your customers will use
the product and the problems it will solve. This is far more interesting
and engaging for your reader or viewer than a list of product features.

• Reviews, customer experiences and social proof are also key drivers
of desire. At the very least, they show that other people who are similar
to the audience have also enjoyed the benefits of your product. It adds
layers of legitimacy and trust to your conversion-level content.

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Action—tapping into emotions

There are numerous ways to encourage people to take action and make
a purchase.

• The fear of missing out (FOMO) is powerful. People don’t like to

think that their peers, competitors—or even friends—are enjoying
something out of their reach. Tapping into this unconscious bias can
drive people to take action.

• Stories in particular work by engaging your customer’s emotions—

and in doing so, they create positive associations with your brand or
product. Emotions like love, joy, surprise and empathy make people
feel good about your product. Emotions such as fear, anger, sadness
or jealousy can also push people into taking action. However, always
make sure that your approach is ethical and fair, and reflects the
values of your brand.

• Think about your calls to action. People sometimes need an extra

push to make a purchase. By including a deadline, people know they
only have a short time to act. Referral fees and discount codes can
also encourage people to make a purchase or recommendation they
wouldn’t otherwise make.

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7 Elements
of an Engaging
Blog Post
Margarita Loktionova (Our Content Marketing Lead
at Semrush) interviewed Henneke Duistermaat.
Henneke teaches writers how to captivate, educate,
and inspire their readers. She is the author of two
5-star rated books and several acclaimed courses
about copywriting and blogging. Find more tips
from Henneke at Enchanting Marketing.

Have you ever written a blog that’s fallen as flat as a pancake? It had great
content, lots of ideas, and it took you a long time...but you just got nothing back.
No comments, no shares, no engagement at all.

We’ve all been there—and it’s a real tear jerker.

If your blogs aren’t doing as well as you’d hoped, it’s time to think about making
them more engaging, more conversational—and more effective. Here are seven
elements that you really cannot do without when writing blogs online. ↓

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1 Identify the blog’s purpose

An aimless blog is a readerless blog—that almost goes without saying. So,

before you start writing anything, it’s important to define your mission. Whether
that’s to get more people to cook and eat delicious Malaysian food, to stamp
out gobbledygook (in Henneke’s case), or even to make work better with a SaaS
product—your willingness to help and improve people’s lives should come across
in your content. That’s what’s going to get people to sit up and take notice.

Think about how your business can help others and—even in a small way—make
the world a better place through your writing. It should be something you're
passionate about—that’s what’s going to shine through.

Once you focus on your mission instead of sales, customers will start lining up
at the door. Because a mission attracts, energizes, and motivates people.

2 Tell the story

“Once upon a time” is for fairytales, but storytelling itself is an important blogging
technique. In fact, stories are often what make your articles memorable.

Unfortunately, people are often confused about how to use storytelling in blog
posts. One way to think about this is the zoom-in-zoom-out technique. You tell
a specific story and then relate it to the big picture/data. ↓

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It looks something like this:

• Captivate readers by zooming into the story of one person in one

specific situation

• Zoom out to the bigger picture and describe the trends, the lessons,
the statistics

• Avoid the bit in-between

Using a personal example helps the reader relate to the narrative on a deeper
level—and the broader context shows them why it’s important.

3 Simple writing is clear writing

Jargon and complex sentences only serve to make things harder to understand.
That’s why you should simplify and write with clarity, so you can be clear about
your message to your reader. While you should never patronize your readers, you
should certainly avoid overwhelming them.

Keep your writing concise and remember—when you try to say too many things in
one content piece, it gets too much.

4 Understand the reader’s psychology

Understanding the reader’s psychology and the purpose of each section of

the article will help you write more engagingly. For example, we often simply
summarize what the blog will be about in the opening paragraph. By starting off
with obvious things, we make the whole thing look boring. ↓
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But really, the only purpose of the opening paragraph is to get people to read
your blog post. So, use your opening to explain to readers that you understand
a specific problem they’re facing and promise them, your post will help solve
that problem.

Also, blog posts often peter out at the end—as if the writer was getting tired. The
purpose of the closing paragraph is to inspire people to implement what they’ve
just read, to see what difference it can make to their life. To inspire your reader,
consider what’s holding them back, and take away that hurdle in your
final paragraph.

5 Embrace empathy

To truly write engaging content, it can help to put our content strategy, business
objectives aside when writing. If we focus too much on our business goals, we
might lose sight of our readers.

So, imagine you are writing for one person. What are their aims and challenges?
How can your blog posts help improve their lives?

This is the starting point for empathy, and empathy for your readers makes your
writing more engaging.

When you outline a blog post, think not just from the perspective of SEO, but
also from the perspective of that ideal reader. What are the questions that he
has about this topic?

Step into the shoes of your reader and edit the draft trying to look it through their
eyes, as if you are having a conversation with them.

When you write as if you’re having a conversation with one reader, your writing
becomes more human. It’s almost as if you were writing a letter.
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6 Be more conversational

Readers don’t want to feel like they’re attending a lecture. So, make your blog like
a conversation with a friend.

One trick is to use more questions. When you’re having a chat with a friend, you
also ask questions, right?

Questions make your writing feel like a dialogue, especially if you use the word
YOU, too.

7 Making your writing more personal

Finally, let’s talk about you.

What’s different about you? Which experiences and opinions can you share?

Sharing your own experience, voicing your opinion and using short personal
stories can really boost engagement.

When readers get to know the person behind the keyboard, they begin to feel like
you’re a friend. And they want to join in a conversation with you.

Start sharing anecdotes, use your real experience to illustrate your tips—and your
engagement will skyrocket.

Combining these seven elements will give your writing an edge

over your competition, will start to build a community around
your brand, and—if you are consistent and focused—will start
to grow your business and brand. Good luck!
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Tone of Voice

Tone of voice reflects your brand personality, helps you

connect with your audience, and makes you different from
the rest. It relates to how your brand communicates with
the audience and thus influences how people perceive your
messaging.
Moreover, it builds a connection with your audience: 65% of customers say that
they are emotionally connected to a brand in a way that makes them feel like the
company cares about them. Customers who feel comfortable with you are more
likely to want to interact.

While your tone may vary depending on the different audience personas you
communicate with, the medium you are speaking through, and your objective, it
should otherwise remain consistent. This creates a memorable image of your brand.

A tone of voice audit should address two elements:

• What you sound like.

• What you want to sound like.

Norman Nielsen Group created a list of 37 tone-of-voice words that you can use
to help you decide where you fall. For example, are you more formal or casual?
Serious or funny?

Read more in our in depth article on tone of voice↗

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Readability

Readability simply refers to how easy a text is to understand.

Different target audiences will prefer reading texts of different
complexities. This means there is no “universal” readability
score to aim for, rather you should try to write to your
audience’s level.
Readability is determined by sentence length and complexity, vocabulary choice,
and text length. The closer your text is to your target readability, the more
effective it will be.

Using the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant

to check tone of voice and readability

The SEO writing assistant is an intuitive tool that can be

used as a Google Docs add-on, within the Semrush app,
and on Wordpress. If used in Google docs or Wordpress,
it will automatically check the document/page you are
working on. If used within the app, it will check the text
you paste or type in.
After inputting your target keywords, the tool will review the text and give
you a score. ↓

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• First, the assistant gives you an idea

of the tone your copy is striking.
In this case it’s neutral—that’s
great if that is how you are going
to position your brand voice.

• If you want a more informal tone,

you may want to search for shorter
sentences and more colloquial terms.

• Next, we see how consistent the

tone is throughout the document.

In the example, we can see it is fairly

consistent (74%). The tool pulls out
a number of examples where the
language could be edited to be more
or less formal.

Click on What is it? To better understand the differences between casual, neutral
and formal language:

This will help you create a text that is closer to your brand tone of voice. ↓
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The tool also offers a useful overall

optimization score, including how
well optimized the copy is and how
readable it is, as well as an SEO and
originality score.

To get specific recommendations for

each area, simply click on the label.

Checking your readability

score
The SEO Writing Assistant analyzes
your copy and assigns a score based
on sentence length and complexity,
vocabulary choice, and text length.

It also analyzes your top 10 Google

competitors to come up with a target
readability score.

Scores range from 0–30, which is

considered a College Graduate level,
to 90–100, which is a 5th grade reading
level (11-year-olds will have no trouble
understanding it).

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Workbook Task Three

Analyze Your Upcoming Content
Analyze your upcoming or latest blog post using the SEO
Writing Assistant (if you don’t have a Semrush subscription,
you can do this for free using a trial version).
Discuss with your team:

How close is the text to your target tone of voice?

What improvements could you make to make the copy more consistent?

Are you meeting readability targets?

Whether or not you continue to use the SEO Writing Assistant, these questions
can help in editing your future work.

Check out the SEO Writing Assistant here↗

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Primer Becoming a thought leader

A true thought leader takes a stand.

They have strong views.

They are willing to be wrong.

Strong opinion is essential for

thought leadership, according to
a survey of 480 marketers.

This is a difficult path for a lot of content programs. It feels risky. But it’s
often very effective for the programs that do it, because so few brands are
willing to try.

That’s why content based on a strong opinion is automatically

differentiated. It feels different. It gives the audience something to talk
about. It has big advantages in social media and often leads to very
loyal followings.

It captures attention and sometimes triggers a response. When that

response is in other articles, it leads to links and sometimes press hits.

Strong opinion doesn’t have to be on major topics. A lot of people have

strong opinions about very mundane things: the Oxford comma, ketchup
on hotdogs, is bounce rate important, etc.

— Andy Crestodina,
Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder,
Orbit Media Studios, Inc.

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A guide to writing
different types
of copy
1 Blog posts

Blog articles are very versatile. They can be suitable for top of the funnel (ToFu)
content—answering user questions and providing solutions—or they can be
more middle of the funnel (MoFu), sharing topics like "best lawnmowers for
large areas”. Blogs can even be at the bottom of the funnel (BoFu), sharing
content like "How to use your robo-oven for batch cooking.”

Whether you want to write a thought leader piece or a product announcement.

It's important to focus on the following:

Information
• Remember your audience—what do they need to know first? Give the reader
the most important information right away.

• Focus on the comprehensiveness of your blog posts. According to our

research, long reads of over 3000 words get three times more traffic, four
times more shares, and more backlinks than average length articles of 901–
1200 words. However, this is not about aiming for a universal text length,
as there is no such thing and it will vary depending on the industry and ↓

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keywords. However, it showcases the importance of covering the topic in-

depth. Use the SEO Content Template to come up with a target text length
for your blog posts, based on the top 10 organic rivals.

• Add calls to action where appropriate, but don’t overload the content
with these.

Structure
• Break up the article with subheadings (H2, H3 and H4 tags)—these should
be clear, consistent. Our study shows that more than half of the posts with a
complex structure (H2+H3+H4) are high-performing in terms of engagement
and traffic.

• Keep each section brief—the more concise the better because your message
will remain clear.

Supporting materials
• Use images to illustrate what you're saying and to maintain attention
throughout the text. Make sure to use ALT attributes for accessibility and SEO
reasons.

• Include appropriate internal links, using keywords to give your SEO a boost.

Keywords and links

• Distribute keywords, using them in the title, opening paragraphs, subheadings
and evenly throughout the content in order to optimize it for search engines.
Use the SEO Writing Assistant to help you do so.

• Link out to other authoritative sources of information, avoiding linking to pages

that are competing for the same keywords.

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2 Emails

Emails are some of the most personal forms of writing you can do. Every time
you write and send an email—even if it's to a large list of subscribers—it's
arriving in someone's private inbox. You therefore need to remember you're
speaking to an individual.

• Use people's names

• Respect the reader’s time, so keep your emails short: between 50 and 125
words get the best response rates, on average (based on research by
Boomerang which analyzed the aggregate data of 5.3 million emails).

• And don't overload emails with images, because these can be heavy for your
reader’s email client. Emails over 102kb get clipped by Gmail, for example,
and this can result in your content being ignored.

On top of this, you should remember that each email needs an objective. What
do you want the reader to do? Keep your calls to action clear, simple, and don't
overload the content with buttons or links to click on.

Finally, one of the most important aspects of an email is the subject line.
Without a strong subject line, it's unlikely your reader will even open the email.
For this reason, you should A/B test (or split test) your subject lines and see
what is getting the most traction.

Over time you'll learn what your audience likes and what your audience doesn't.
And you can then optimize and increase your open rates throughout your email
campaigns.

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3 Landing pages

Landing pages generally aim to give visitors enough information so they can
take action. Following the AIDA framework, as we have already discussed, helps
you to structure the page.

Consider the following:

• What is your unique value proposition? Why should the reader care about
your solution? Address this in the first section of the landing page.

• What benefits are you providing them? Be clear how your product or service
will help the website visitor with their particular problem or challenge.

• Consider what questions the website visitor has. Lead them through all the
answers in a logical way.

• Have a strong call to action: Don’t be afraid to sell on a landing page. Your
users need to know how to take the action you want them to.

4 Product Descriptions

Product descriptions have a primary purpose, and that

is to answer potential clients’ questions. For example, if
you're selling an item of clothing, potential customers first
want to know: ↓

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• Available size (perhaps include a size comparison chart)

• What material it’s made from (synthetic, natural, waterproof, etc).

• The colors it’s available in

• Price

• Delivery costs

• Time to deliver

Once you’ve answered the primary questions, your customers

may also have more doubts. For example:
• Is it fair trade?

• Is the material breathable?

• Is the material easily washable, non-iron? etc.

Think about what your customer wants to know. If you're selling something
online, especially if it's a tangible product, it's not like stepping into a regular
bricks-and-mortar store and picking something off the rack. You have to answer
all the questions and overcome their objectionsand you only have a few words
to do it.

Be very concise and think about word economy when you're producing
a description, designed to sell a product or service.

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Workbook Task Four

Explore the SEO Content Template
Recommendations for Your Next Content Piece
You’re going to create an SEO-friendly content brief using
our SEO Content Template.
• Head to the SEO Content Template to get recommendations based on your
target keywords.

• Enter the keywords that you want to target with your content.

• The tool then analyzes content from Google's top 10-ranking pages and gives
you recommendations on how to create SEO-friendly content, including:

• Recommended readability score and content length

• SEO recommendations based on Google top 10 rivals for your

target keywords

• Suggested semantically-related keywords to include

• List of websites to get backlinks from

• And more!

Explore the SEO Content Template here↗

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How to edit
& publish your
testimonials
By Eddie Shleyner,
Founder of VeryGoodCopy.com

A few years back, I began asking my clients, colleagues, collaborators, and

subscribers for testimonials because they’re such an efficient and compelling
form of proof.

Over the years, I’ve collected hundreds of testimonials, which I display on

VeryGoodCopy.

They vary in length: Some are short, only a few words; others are long, very
long, a hundred words or more. So given the variability, I created a system of
standardization to provide a good user experience for folks browsing my website:

I pull out the most valuable sentence from the testimonial and display it as
either a headline or standalone statement. For example, the “Headline” format
looks like this: ↓

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The “Stand-alone” format looks like this:

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Either way, by focusing the reader’s attention on a single sentence, you’re

doing a few good things:

Good thing #1: You’re controlling the narrative.

Every testimonial is different. Different word count, different degree of clarity
and specificity and accuracy. This variation can confuse and overwhelm
the reader.

Isolating a single sentence helps you highlight the best part of each
testimonial while improving the readability.

Good thing #2: You’re helping The Reader digest.

You might love reading every word of your testimonials, but most people are
(at best) skimming through them.

One sentence is really all you need to make your point.

Good thing #3: You’re manufacturing the LISH effect.

LISH is short for the Length Implies Strength Heuristic, which is basically
a signal that tells your brain: more words = more credibility.

A wall of one-sentence testimonials is the epitome of LISH—and, therefore,

incredibly influential.

There’s good news & bad news:

The bad news: Every testimonial you get needs attention and thought, work.
One of the worst things you can do is slap an unedited testimonial on your
homepage.

The good news: A little work will go a long way. Well-presented testimonials
are among the most powerful forms of persuasion at your disposal.

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Optimizing your
content for
search engines
There are a number of ways and tools you can use to optimize your content for
search engines. By doing so, you make your content more visible to your target
audience, you’ll likely generate more website traffic, and have more chances of
achieving your content marketing goals.

Download this SEO Writing Checklist for 2021↗

1 Start with Keyword Research

Pick one primary keyword to be the focus of the entire article. Use the Semrush
Keyword Magic Tool to find the volume and related keywords. The ideal keyword
has a high search volume but low difficulty ranking—as this means lots of
people search for it and there is a good chance you can rank for the term in the
search results. To measure the level of competition for paid campaigns, use the
Competitive Density metric to analyze each keyword. ↓

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Other keywords you choose should relate to and support your primary keyword
in order to keep the article focused on the topic.

The Topic Research Tool

The Topic Research Tool helps you analyze rival websites and gives you ideas
to write high performing content. At the same time, it can help you find your
audience’s interests. It gives you a wide range of related topics, article titles,
and keyword-related questions. For example:

Simply click on show more, for extended information, including the most popular
headlines, questions people ask, and related searches:

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2 Determine Search Intent

It’s important to understand what a user is searching for, and which content
format will best serve their needs. Google breaks down this search intent into
the following categories:

• Informational searches: They are looking for specific information on a topic.

• Navigational: They are looking for a particular web page or site.

• Commercial: They are investigating products to purchase.

• Transactional: They intend to buy something right now.

Manually searching for your target keywords can help you identify the types of
content the search engines are delivering—and indicate the format your content
should be in too. What’s ranking now? Listicles, guides, landing pages, how tos?

Moreover, tools like the​​SEO Content Template list your top 10 competing articles
on Google—which you can include in your writers’ briefs.

3 Create a Well-Optimized Meta Title

Write a unique title for each page, include the primary keyword and don’t exceed
60 characters or it will be truncated in the search results. The title should explain
how the content will benefit the reader and—ultimately—entice them to click.

4 Optimize URLs

Include your primary keyword in the URL and remove unimportant stop words
(if, the, and, or, etc.). This will make the URL more search-engine friendly and will
keep things tidy and more readable too.
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5 Add visuals

Images break up the page, make content more visually appealing, and improve
the user experience—something that Google values. Be sure to include
descriptive ALT text—this is good for people who use screen readers and is
an opportunity to add keywords also.

6 Interlink

Improve the structure of your site (in terms of SEO) by linking to relevant internal
content that will add value to your audience. Never use bare URLs, instead use
descriptive hyperlinked text that include relevant keywords.

7 Cover the topic in-depth

The more comprehensive your content, the better it is likely to do in the search
results. Answer as many of your reader’s questions as possible and go into
detail. This will show the search engines that your content is relevant, valuable
and worth displaying. It may also encourage natural backlinks, which can be
a big boost for your SEO. To find those related questions and subtopics, use the
Semrush Topic Research tool.

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Use the Semrush SEO

8 Writing Assistant
The Semrush SEO Writing Assistant not only
analyzes the content for keyword distribution,
but also suggests semantically related words
and phrases that you should include in the
content and helps you optimize links and
alt tags.

9 Audit your content

A content audit is the process of regularly

analyzing and assessing all the content
on your website. Your aim is to find out
what’s working and what’s not in your content
strategy. It allows you to have an agile content
plan that meets your marketing objectives.

Content audits help you discover which content needs

to be improved or repurposed into other formats.
Explore the Content Audit tool on Semrush and
learn more in this guide.

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Primer Assembling and structuring content

Long before there was SEO, the best copywriters were still very concerned
with engagement. Copywriting legend, Eugene Schwartz said it best:

“You do not write copy, you assemble it. You are working with a series
of building blocks, you are putting the building blocks together, and
then you are putting them in certain structures, you are building a little
city of desire for your person to come and live in.”

The only difference is that today, these are not just cities of desire. They are
cities of discovery.

Visuals and formatting can improve engagement. Most marketers know that.
If your page looks like a wall of text, visitors aren’t going to stick around.

But few marketers fully grasp the importance of visuals and formatting for
SEO. But highly visual and scannable content can support all three of the
main search ranking factors.

Here’s how:

1. User Interaction Signals

RANK

2. Relevance 3. Authority

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Primer Assembling and structuring content

User Interaction Signals

Content that is easy to scan will hold visitors’ attention longer, increasing
“dwell time” (time on page from organic search) which is a search ranking
factor.

The idea is to keep the scan reader flowing through the content by avoiding
long blocky paragraphs and adding strong visuals at every scroll depth.

Highly structured, visual content keeps visitors engaged for longer.

Relevance

More formatting means more opportunities for the inclusion of the target
keyphrase and related phrases.

These are all places where you can indicate relevance: subheads, bolding,
bullet lists, alt text and short summary statements. These types of
formatting can also help you win the featured snippet.

Authority

Internal links are another opportunity to use keyword-focused anchor text

and to pass authority between pages.

And great visuals (especially charts and diagrams) are opportunities to do

“image source link building.” Whenever you have the opportunity to contribute
to content to another site, add an image and and image source link.

It’s easier to build links to articles with great visuals.

— Andy Crestodina,
Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder,
Orbit Media Studios, Inc.

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Wrapping up
By following the steps in this guide and taking on the advice
of experts like Henneke Duistermaat, Andy Crestodina
and Eddie Shleyner, you are well on your way to producing
incredible, user-centered content.

Your next challenge is to create a content marketing plan and execute

it consistently.

It’s time to see your business grow through valuable content.

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Semrush
Content Marketing
Platform
Our content marketing platform includes 7 powerful tools to help you execute
a data-informed content strategy based on your audience's needs:

• Topic research—to quickly generate dozens of content ideas for your

content hubs

• Marketing Calendar—to collaborate with your team members on the

content campaigns

• SEO Content Template—to easily generate SEO-friendly briefs

• SEO Writing Assistant—to optimize your copy for users and SEO on the go

• Brand Monitoring—to find partnership and backlink opportunities

• Post Tracking—to analyze the performance of your external publications

• Content Audit—to run regular content audits on your website

Sign up for an unbeatable combination

of creativity and user insights.

Get your free 7-day trial today↗

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